PANews reported on May 15th that, according to CoinDesk, Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has laid off approximately 150 employees as part of a pre-IPO business optimization plan. Kraken currently has approximately 3,000 employees. The report states that Payward is seeking a new round of financing at a valuation of approximately $20 billion and is accelerating its acquisition and expansion efforts. The company has previously acquired stablecoin payment company Reap, derivatives platform Bitnomial, and in 2025, it acquired US futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion. Payward secretly filed for an SEC listing in November 2025 and plans to restart the IPO process once market conditions improve.